Narrative of a Survey of the Intertropical and Western Coasts of Australia eBook

The tides are of trifling consequence; the flood comes
from the eastward, but rarely rises more than ten
feet, or runs so much as a mile and a half per hour.
High water takes place at full and change at Liverpool
River, and Goulburn Island at six o’clock, at
the entrance of the Alligator Rivers in Van Diemen’s
Gulf, at 8 hours 15 minutes, and at the south end
of Apsley Strait at 3 hours 25 minutes.* The flood-tide
comes from the eastward, excepting when its course
is altered by local circumstances; the rise is not
more than eleven feet at the springs.

(Footnote. In St. Asaph’s Bay, Lieutenant
Roe found high-water take place at full and change
at 5 hours 45 minutes; and in King’s Cove at
5 hours 15 minutes; at the latter place it rose fourteen
feet.)

The variation of the compass in this interval is scarcely
affected by the ship’s local attraction.
Off Cape Wessel it is between 3 and 4 degrees East;
at Liverpool River about 1 3/4 degrees East, at Goulburn
Islands 2 degrees East, and off Cape Van Diemen, not
more than 1 1/2 degrees East.

The dip of the south end of the needle at Goulburn
Island was 27 degrees 32 1/2 minutes.

When the survey of the Gulf of Carpentaria was completed
by Captain Flinders, his vessel proved to be so unfit
for continuing the examination of the north coast,
that it was found necessary to return to Port Jackson;
and as he left it at the strait that separates Point
Dale from Wessel’s Islands, which is called
in my chart BROWN’S STRAIT, he saw no part of
the coast to the westward of that point, nor did he
even see Cape Wessel, the extremity of the range of
Wessel’s Islands, which terminate in latitude
10 degrees 59 1/4 minutes, and longitude 135 degrees
46 minutes 30 seconds. The group consists of
four islands, besides some of smaller size to the
southward of the northernmost, and also a few on the
eastern side of Brown’s Strait; one of which
is Cunningham’s Island, of Captain Flinders.
CUMBERLAND STRAIT is in latitude 11 degrees 25 minutes,
longitude 135 degrees 31 minutes.

POINT DALE, unless it is upon an island, appears to
be the east extremity of the north coast; its latitude
is 11 degrees 36 minutes, longitude 135 degrees 9
minutes: there are several rocky islands of small
size, lying off, encompassed by a reef, which extends
for eight miles North-North-East 1/2 East from the
point. In Brown’s Strait the tide sets
at the rate of three and a half and four miles per
hour; the flood runs to the southward through the
strait. To the westward of Point Dale the coast
extends for about sixty miles to the south-west to
Castlereagh Bay; in which space there are several
openings in the beach, that are probably small rivers:
one, ten miles to the South-West, may be a strait
insulating Point Dale, and communicating with Arnhem
Bay.